Addressing Polio at the Colosseum Amidst a Busy Week

Sharing updates from the past week and a half, including K-Pop announcements. More updates to come later this week

Sep 13, 2023

Dear Friends,

It has been a busy few 10 days and I apologize for not having sent this earlier, so this week you will get 2 weeks from me as we gear up for the Global Citizen Festival and lots of updates to come.

I recently returned from a brief trip to Rome, where I had the honor of speaking at the Time For Change event in support of Rotary International's polio eradication program. Beyond fulfilling the dreams of my 10-year-old self (I loved Roman history growing up), it was a fantastic evening filled with highlights, including a remarkable performance by the Twin Violinists. They raised $500,000 for polio eradication!

Look out for more updates later this week with things getting busier than ever! Here is a recap from the past week.

Meeting HE President Akufo-Addo in Ghana

Last week we also had a successful meeting with Ghanaian President Akufo-Addo, where we had the chance to update him on our work and brief him on this year’s UN General Assembly activities.

I’m always grateful for our partnership with President Akufo-Addo — it’s crazy to think about how this time last year I was in Accra and getting ready for our first-ever Global Citizen Festival in Ghana. Since then, we’ve maintained strong relationships in Ghana, and look forward to continuing to work with HE to advance our shared goals.

KPOP Star Jung Kook to Join the Global Citizen Festival

In case you’ve been living under a rock, this week the GC team announced our latest Global Citizen Festival headliner, BTS boy band legend, Jung Kook.

The global press loves this announcement as much as K-Pop frans do. We had 480 media hits in the first 30 hours across 31 countries with wide pickup in India, the Middle East, and not surprisingly, Korea. We’ve had an estimated reach of 1.5 billion impressions (and counting), including Forbes, Rolling Stone, ABC News, Variety, LA Times, and Billboard, as well as international news outlets Allkpop, Les Actualites, The Times of India, Taiwan News, and Instyle Greece.

The announcement quickly began trending across social media, with highlights including:

3.9M impressions across all related posts on Instagram, Facebook, X, Threads, TikTok, and LinkedIn

293K engagements across all posts

7.3% engagement rate across all posts

Global Citizen UN / Climate Week

Beyond the tentpole Global Citizen Festival, the team is also excited to be hosting a variety of events, focused on the private sector:

Investing in Food Security: How the Private Sector is Partnering to Create Innovative Solutions to Address the Hunger Crisis

Tuesday, September 19, 3:00 pm ET

388 Greenwich ST, New York, NY 10013

The Citi Hunger Event includes a keynote from José Ramos-Horta, President of Timor Leste as well as a panel moderated by Sabrina Elba. The panel will feature Brandee McHale, Head of Community Investing and Development at Citi and President of the Citi Foundation, Asma Lateef, Policy and Advocacy Lead at SDG2 Advocacy Hub, & Stephen Kehoe, Executive Vice President, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors, PepsiCo Foundation.

Global Citizen NOW: Climate Sessions

Thursday, Sept. 21, 8 am ET to 2 pm ET

Guastavino’s: 409 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022

Global Citizen NOW: Climate Sessions is a gathering of dozens of leaders from across the private, public, and civil society sectors during Climate Week NYC. Those present will discuss and debate the systemic impacts climate change is having on education; how sectors can collaborate in the green transition; and the power of countries on the forefront of climate change.

Speakers include Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, Dr. Tariq Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer and Vice-Chairman of Dubai Cares, Xiye Bastida, Co-Founder and Climate Activist, Re-Earth Initiative, Rodrigo Salvado, Director General, Operational Partnership Department, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, White House Climate Advisor, and President von der Leyen of the European Commission and more from across sectors.

If either of the above events sound interesting to you, please reach out to annabel.hogg@globalcitizen.org

Climate Group and Global Citizen Rally Behind a Fossil Fuel Treaty to Accelerate End of Fossil Fuel Industry

As New York Climate Week approaches, the team was happy to announce GC’s support for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, in partnership with The Climate Group, to accelerate the end of the fossil fuel industry.

GC’s support adds to the diplomatic efforts of a growing bloc of six Pacific Islands Nations — Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, Fiji, Niue, the Solomon Islands — who are boldly championing a negotiating mandate for a new Treaty. These government endorsements were very recently followed with an especially weighty endorsement by the State of California.

Check out the full press release on this here as well as the Twitter thread here.

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Thanks for your support to the Global Town Hall!

What an amazing journey we had last week! A 15 hour action-oriented marathon of inspiring discussions that we were thrilled and proud to co-organize with our Jakarta-based partner Foreign Policy Community Indonesia. Around 10 thousand people connected from the world over to participate (yes not just to hear, we made sure the discussions where as engaging and interactive as possible) on panels on the State of the World, geopolitics, answers to the climate crisis, the role of the private sector, defending human rights and so much more! From the President of Timor-Leste Jose Ramos Horta, the Prime Ministers of Antigua and Barbuda, as well as Samoa, the Foreign Ministers of Australia, China and Mongolia, our four Global Citizen Prize winners, the UN Deputy Secretary General, the Director General of ILO, the UN High Commissioner for Human rights, and so many activists, academics, CSOs, the list is just too long! But the good news is that you can rewatch it all! Just go to the Global Town Hall website and rewatch it all!

Global Citizen Opens Up Shop in Geneva!

Geneva, Switzerland is by far not just the gateway to the Alps, great chocolate and cheese fondue and swiss army knives and fancy watches, far from that! It boasts the highest concentrations of international organizations in the world (sorry New York), including the second largest headquarters of the United Nations, 179 diplomatic representations, over 750 NGOs and more than 4,000 conferences per year organized. With so much work done in Geneva linked up directly to our advocacy areas, GC could not stay away!

So Global Citizen has been incorporated into the commercial registry of the Canton of Geneva, joining the growing ecosystem of international CSOs present in the city. Increasing our legal presence in Geneva is timely, as our growing engagement with Geneva-based or Geneva-present organizations such as the World Health Organization, ILO, the OHCHR, different special procedures of the Human Rights Council, UNFPA and different partner CSOs testify to these synergies. GC’s presence there is led by our colleague Ruben Escalante-Hasbun, so don't hesitate to contact him at ruben.hasbun@globalcitizen.org if you have any questions or suggestions, as I know many of you have connections to the Geneva international world and Ruben is very excited about the potential new collaborations can offer to further our mission!

Global Citizen Festival - A Unique Viewing Experience

With just 10 days to go until the festival, and this year’s headliners including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Megan Thee Stallion, Stray Kids, and Conan Gray, we have a limited number of Ultimate VIP tickets available for purchase.

The Ultimate VIP (UVIP) experience includes:

UVIP tent access with a delectable array of food and a wide selection of both non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages.
Front-row stage viewing for an up-close and personal connection with your favorite artists.
Enjoy the convenience of a private entrance and exclusive restroom facilities.
For those who purchase 20 or more tickets, there's an added bonus of access to limited branded lounge areas.

The tax-deductible proceeds of these passes support our 501(c)3 and GC’s campaigns, which to date have impacted the lives of nearly 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty around the world. If you or your company are interested in purchasing these tickets please do so here.

My (Last) Weekend Reading List

As always, if you’re enjoying the weekly newsletter format, and want even more, you can subscribe to my Substack here where I publish reviews, lists and articles on a regular basis.

Til later this week,

Mick